Re: Installing Lisa OS on ProFile
Chris How about trying the LISA TEST diskette to see if this will format the ProFile drive attached to your parallel card. Believe there is a repair or format utility in Lisa Test. - David Craig -- From: Chris Smolinski [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Installing Lisa OS on ProFile Date: Tue, Aug 17, 2004, 1:51 PM I'm in a bit of a bind. I have a working Lisa, and a working ProFile (I can format it using MacWorks). But the Lisa is a 2/10 without an internal Widget HD. So when I try to install Lisa OS, it complains that it can't find a HD, presumably it is looking for the Internal drive. The ProFile is connected to a parallel card in slot #1. Any suggestions? Presumably I could make a cable to connect the ProFile to the Internal drive connector? Any less hardware-intensive way to do it? -- --- Chris Smolinski Black Cat Systems http://www.blackcatsystems.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
Re: PSU
Mike Does anyone know of any more sources I could try for a Lisa PSU [power supply unit] ? For Lisa parts you could try: John Woodall [EMAIL PROTECTED] He repairs and sells Lisas and knows quite a bit about them. I am suprised that Sun Remarketing still has any Lisas or parts to sell these days. - David Craig -- From: Mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: PSU Date: Tue, Nov 2, 2004, 3:40 AM Thanks for that, I have a 1.8amp PSU back ordered now on SunRemarketting (might take a while !). Does anyone know of any more sources I could try for a Lisa PSU ? Thanks once again Mike -Original Message- From: LisaList [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Smolinski Sent: 24 October 2004 23:45 To: LisaList Subject: Re: PSU Hi All, I am trying to give a Lisa the kiss of life ! I am looking for a Power Supply for a Lisa (Lisa 2 I think, I am very new to the Lisa world !). The part number is 699-0190 but I am not able to find anything that matches it on the Internet the closest was (Sun Remarketting) 699-0189 (1.8amp). Do I have a non standard PSU here ? That's the 1.8 amp supply, vs your old 1.2 amp supply. The 1.8 will work fine, and will probably last longer. -- --- Chris Smolinski Black Cat Systems http://www.blackcatsystems.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.776 / Virus Database: 523 - Release Date: 12/10/2004 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.776 / Virus Database: 523 - Release Date: 13/10/2004 -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
Re: Looking for parts or a parts machine
Stephen, I'm really looking for a working widget drive or someone who can test out a widget drive and possibly even low level format it Try the following person who may be able to fix Lisa hard drives: JOHN WOODALL [EMAIL PROTECTED] My understanding of Widget hard drive low-level formatting is this was done with an Apple III computer and a special program and a special ROM for the Widget disk controller board. - David Craig -- From: Stephen Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Looking for parts or a parts machine Date: Fri, Nov 19, 2004, 3:11 PM I'm really looking for a working widget drive or someone who can test out a widget drive and possibly even low level format it. I've talked to the SUNREM people and another guy in Canada and no one seems to have the equipment anymore. I don't know why it would have been dumped unless someone just wasn't thinking. If anything it would have museum value. My widget drive is actually in great mechanical condition and is probably the quietest drive I've heard of its kind. It calibrates when the controller tells it to, but it has lost its format, so its not possible to install lisa OS on it. So, if someone has a LISA in really bad physical condition but with a working drive, I'd be interested in it. -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
Re: My sick 2/10
Jason, I have a sick 2/10. When I push the power button, there is a 'whump' from the speaker, the diskette drive motor spins a little, and that's is. No lights, CRT activity, nothing. Seems like others say this is a power supply problem or an over-current problem. In case the schematic for the power supply is the problem, I will email you directly this schematic. It may be useful. - David Craig -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
Lisa 2 external video connector and video cameras
Hi Q: Can the Lisa 2's external RCA video connector be used to record video output on a NTSC video camera? I want to make a pristine movie of my Lisa working which includes the startup, booting, Lisa Office System, Lisa Workshop, and MacWorks. I want clear and stable video images, no interlace problems. Q: Can this connector damage my video camera in any way? Q: Does a Lisa 1 have this external video connector? Thanks for any replies. David Craig -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ Using a Mac? Free email more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
Re: Lisa Office System
Macmoni: There have been some developer systems, too. These were not available for custom users, but apple supported selected developers with a (or even several) Lisas and software. You are correct. Apple did provide pre-release versions of Lisa software to selected individuals outside of Apple for beta testing purposes. I was never involved with this testing but know of several people who were. This included the Lisa Office System, Lisa Workshop (the development system for the Lisa), and the Lisa-to-Macintosh Migration Kit. wrote, that even Micro[soft] Billy got a Lisa from Apple That sounds reasonable since Microsoft worked on both Lisa and Macintosh projects. I know Microsoft worked on a version of UNIX for the Lisa (Xenix) but believe it never released it due to the Lisa's short life span. Microsoft also worked on a set of data conversion programs for the Lisa-to-Macintosh Migration kit so that Lisa documents could be converted to Macintosh documents. This included LisaWrite to Microsoft Word and LisaCalc to Microsoft Excel or Multiplan. Even if Apple did not provide Microsoft with Lisas, I assume Microsoft would have just bought several. An aside ... One interesting and little know fact about Microsoft and their Macintosh programs is Microsoft originally used an internal development system for its Macintosh programming. This system was never released to outsiders for their Macintosh work. This was a DEC VAX based system whose main language was C with a bit of 68000 assembler support too. Microsoft did not use Apple's Lisa Workshop for its Macintosh progamming as most other Macintosh developers did. Microsoft's development system for the Macintosh produced a variant of p-code (p=pseudo) which allowed them to create object code for a single platform (the p-machine) and then have just a p-code interpreter running on the host computer. I do not believe Microsoft uses p-machine technology today for its programming efforts since p-code is slower than normal machine code. ...and he [Bill Gates / Microsfot] needed several years to copy GUI - WOW ! As far as I know, Microsoft's GUI efforts in the early years were based more on Xerox's STAR work than on Apple Lisa work. As such, Microsoft's GUI work was not really a copy of Apple's GUI work, thoght similarities do exist. Microsoft hired several ex-Xexox STAR people for its PC-based GUI which was announced in 1981 but did not ship as Windows 1.0 until I believe 1985 or so. I assume Microsoft did study the Apple GUI efforts and use some of these ideas for their GUI work. You also must factor in IBM's GUI work here too which was occuring at this timeframe too. This was called SAA (system application architecture) by IBM and the GUI component of SAA was called CUI (common user interface). Note that IBM had a name for everything it did - made copyright and tademarking easier for them. The CUI had a feature called MDI (multiple document interface) which was the core interface element for Microsoft Windows. MDI differed radically from Apple's GUI architecture. Marcin Wichary [EMAIL PROTECTED] would be the person to ask about this stuff since he's very knowledgable about the different GUIs. - David Craig -- From: macmoni [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Lisa Office System Date: Sat, Jan 8, 2005, 12:55 PM Hi, a short remark concerning Lisa OS. There have been some developer systems, too. These were not available for custom users, but apple supported selected developers with a (or even several) Lisas and software. Here's the picture of such a software disk: http://www.deschler-web.de/Bilder/Diskette.JPG P.S. Somewhere in the web I read an article a few month ago, where they wrote, that even Micro Billy got a Lisa from Apple. Don't know, whether that is true, but it's in deed remarkable!!! ...and he needed several years to copy GUI - WOW ! -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: Lisa Office System and GUI
Marcin, I am aware of Raskin and Horn's Apple GUI commentary. It has lots of good information. There was lots of good work done in this area by Apple. Though many GUI aspects were not original to Apple, Apple did pioneer a few areas and also improved many others. Concerning the Lisa's icon-based GUI, Horn told me many years ago that he actually originated this when he started his Finder work on the Macintosh and showed Bill Atkinson his early Finder prototype. Atkinson then changed the Lisa's GUI from a dialog-based UI to the icon-based UI. Also, I have not forgotten about scanning the Lisa ads I have. I just moved to a new house and have not had time to do this scanning. Will do so by the next week. - David Craig -- From: macmoni [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Re: Lisa Office System and GUI Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2005, 2:31 AM Hi David, very interesting, in deed ! I also recommend this article (hope the link is still alive) published by Glen Sanford with permission of Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin. You can find there some remarkable details between the lines of the 5 page dialogue !!! (Copyright 1996 by Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin. Used by permission. Source: www.apple-history.com 2004) ...Where It All Began For more than a decade now, I've listened to the debate about where the Macintosh user interface came from. Most people assume it came directly from Xerox, after Steve Jobs went to visit Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). This fact is reported over and over, by people who don't know better (and also by people who should!). Unfortunately, it just isn't true - there are some similarities between the Apple interface and the various interfaces on Xerox systems, but the differences are substantial And the following Lines are very interesting, cause Jef Raskin didn't agree with Bruce Horn's notes, so a very very very interesting discussion began and there you can read some remarkable facts, who cloned what (or even copied from whom) and then tried to tell the rest of the world that something revolutionary new has been invented. Unfortunately nearly 99% of all SchWINdoof-users believe that Pro-Microsoft fairytale today. Cause they don't know. I have to translate: the word SchWINdoof is a german expression, which consits of 3 mixed parts: Sch... (for the german word of shit) SchWIN... (for the german word of swindler) WIN (the only winner in the 90ies Apple vs. Microsoft has been Billy with a very strange working justice, we all know) doof (means silly or stupid. This is what you become, when you use MS-Software every day, scientists say) I hope, Dan will not kick off me from the List, due to this words. If somebody doesn't agree with that, just keep in mind: Homour is a wide wide field, with some sharp stones in it. But I believe there are similar expressions in every language around the world. I saw some similarities in a modified spot in U.K. Where do you want to go today was changed in Where can we go today? With a the word can on a papertray... :-))) And another short anecdote, I found in the web (don't know, whether Roger Ebert did really say that): Life is too short to use anything but a Mac. -- Roger Ebert To get back into reality: here's the link, concerning who copied what, and what who invented new: www.apple-history.com/support_files/gui_horn1 or try www.apple-history.com and search then for GUI in the year 1984 or history This site is always in construction and there are always modifications. If you cannot find that, just give a short note and I will send you the text by mail. It's worth reading it. David, you should perhaps remember, cause there are also this lines: ...David Craig, a computer history buff, asks if I have the memo on the design of the one-button mouse. I don't know, someday I may have time to go through my papers and find out greetings TOM from Bavaria more humour ? Check this: www.deschler-web.de/Bilder/gaids.jpg In a world without walls or fences, who needs windows or gates? Am 09.01.2005 um 08:08 schrieb Shirl: ...and he [Bill Gates / Microsfot] needed several years to copy GUI - WOW ! As far as I know, Microsoft's GUI efforts in the early years were based more on Xerox's STAR work than on Apple Lisa work. As such, Microsoft's GUI work was not really a copy of Apple's GUI work, thoght similarities do exist. ... -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com
Re: Lisa Office System
Marcin, I did not research IBM's GUI development in as much detail as I would love to, but I think it all happened later. First OS/2 1.1 with GUI (joint creation of Microsoft and IBM) was released as late as in 1988. My undrstanding is IBM investigated an icon-based GUI _before_ there was a Lisa or Macintosh. This interface was called DATALAND. The Lisa GUI history paper by Perkins talks about this a bit. - David Craig -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: Lisa Office System and GUI
Marcin, The field of GUI design seems to be full of creativie copying and alterations ans originality. Many many many people are involved in this area and they learn from each other. At least that is my impression. I think this behavior is very good since it provides innovations which hopefully end up making computers easier to use by their regular users. The only regret I have about this area is the WIMP (windows/icons/mouse pointer) interface is still around. There must be something better than this. I know efforts have been made to develop the WIMP successor, but these seemed to have failed due to WIMP's hegemony in the computing world UI. - David Craig -- From: Marcin Wichary [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Re: Lisa Office System and GUI Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2005, 3:13 AM And the following Lines are very interesting, cause Jef Raskin didn't agree with Bruce Horn's notes, so a very very very interesting discussion began and there you can read some remarkable facts, who cloned what (or even copied from whom) and then tried to tell the rest of the world that something revolutionary new has been invented. To put some things into perspective... Apple copied some stuff from Microsoft Windows as well, for example tabs, which appeared in Windows 95 first -- or even in some Windows 3.x apps -- and then later in Mac OS 8. The whole concept of Exposé is said to have been researched in Microsoft before Panther (but this might be as well an overstatement... or the case of parallel research on similar topics). And while Microsoft might've started on a wrong foot, some human-computer interaction experts believe now that Microsoft innovates in GUI and UI fields much more than Apple. For example, you can routinely see many Microsoft employees at the biggest conferences in the field, while Apple people are sadly absent. Also, the whole Mac OS X is considered very conservative, and dock the biggest GUI blunder in ages. Marcin Wichary e:\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] w:\ www.aci.com.pl/mwichary Attached w:\ www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/gui Graphical User Interface gallery w:\ www.10yearsofbeingboring.com 10 years of Being Boring w:\ www.usability.pl Usability.pl -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: LisaGuide.
Marcin I have around a 100 screen shots on paper of LisaGuide in action. I made these when the Lisa debuted so I would have a paper copy of how to use the Lisa user interface. I will scan this document for you so you can have for your UI web site. - David Craig -- From: Marcin Wichary [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: LisaGuide. Date: Sun, Jan 9, 2005, 11:24 AM Does anyone of you have the screenshots of LisaGuide in action, or knows where one can find them, or maybe could share some information about this application? Thanks in advance. Marcin Wichary e:\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] w:\ www.aci.com.pl/mwichary Attached w:\ www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/gui Graphical User Interface gallery w:\ www.10yearsofbeingboring.com 10 years of Being Boring w:\ www.usability.pl Usability.pl -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: Lisa History
Steve asked ... Why has the Lisa team remained silent? Isn't there a book here? I'd personally love to have all the anecdotes and the like concerning the Lisa's development to read. There's a little bit about it on the Mac Folklore site, but everything is so Mac-centric. It would be refreshing to read about the Lisa from a Lisa-centric perspective. I have a 2 CD set called LISA COLLECTED PAPERS which has such information. I created this CD set about a year ago based on many Lisa documents I've collected from 1984 onwards when I used the Lisa Workshop for Macintosh development. These CDs contain a large number of scanned documents covering the Lisa's history, development, articles, and comments by the Lisa development team themselves. Includes some very rare Lisa materials such as the original Lisa requirements document, the Lisa product introduction plan, the Lisa boot ROM source listing, and the Lisa Tool Kit application object-oriented framework listing (the Tool Kit was the predecessor to the Macintosh MacApp framework). If anyone wants a copy of this set just send me a mailing address and I will send them. Concerning Lisa books, KURT SCHMUCKER wrote a great Lisa book in the mid 1980s about the Lisa which I highly recommend. Called THE COMPLEATE LISA, it is out of print but sometimes a copy appeares on eBay for lots of $s. Here's some Lisa development answers to several Lisa questions I asked from one of the Lisa developers I received just this month which may interest you: Q: What was the hardest part about writing programs for the Lisa? I assume developing the underlying support libraries such as the event manager were the biggest obstacles. I also assume the fine tuning which occured at the end of the development to improve the Lisa's performance was difficult too. A: We faced a number of very interesting challenges. Lack of development tools was one. We all got to be very good at crawling up the call chain by looking at the 68000 registers, and then looking for symbols in the code to find out where we were. Brainstorming one day we came up with the idea to have the compiler automatically put the name of the procedure just before the start of the code block, and then modifying the debugger to automatically display the call chain. Brad Silverberg and I also had fun developing a rudimentary set of command line programs. Another category of challenging projects was coming up with the GUI for various apps and UI elements. It is fascinating to me how an interface that we take so much for granted today as obvious and intuitive was everything but that before we discovered it. Most impressive was how developers got some ideas that were different than the prevailing wisdom and did a skunkworks prototype for comparison. At times the prototype hit the target in such an obvious way that it put an end to any further discussion. Other times it didn't feel quite right but led to further refinements in a different direction. We all built on each other's code. The first one to come up with a new kind of alert or dialog often saw their code become the standard interface for that kind of behavior in other apps as well. These early libraries got refactored as the implementation matured. Q: Looking back at the Lisa from a 22 year perspective (1983-2005), what do you see as the best features of the Lisa? Worst? A: The Lisa was way ahead of its time. It took the Mac more than 10 years to get similar features in the OS. However, the Mac was much more successful. The greatest contribution that Lisa made to the industry was the UI elements, libraries, and apps that gave birth to the Mac. Q: What was the hardest part about porting LisaDraw to MacDraw? I assume the memory constraints on the original Mac 128K and 512K machines. A: Squeezing the code into a limited physical memory space was the biggest challenge. I had to factor the code into a 48KByte core and a dozen or so 16KByte overlay segments. I will also send another email to the LisaList mailing list which details the development of the Lisa's user interface and which was written by one of the Lisa's devlopers. - David Craig -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Lisa History Date: Tue, May 10, 2005, 11:53 PM Why has the Lisa team remained silent? Isn't there a book here? I'd personally love to have all the anecdotes and the like concerning the Lisa's development to read. There's a little bit about it on the Mac Folklore site, but everything is so Mac-centric. It would be refreshing to read about the Lisa from a Lisa-centric perspective. Is everyone who was on the team still with us? It would be really useful for the Lisa's History to be recorded while it's still possible. Steve -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info:
Origins of the Apple Human Interface
For a great discussion of the development of the Lisa computer's user interface see the following web site which has a transcript of a presentation by one of the Lisa's creators, Larry Tesler. Origins of the Apple Human Interface Larry Tesler Chris Espinosa Oct. 28, 1997 http://www.computerhistory.org/events/lectures/appleint_10281997/appleint_xs cript.shtml -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Lisa History Date: Tue, May 10, 2005, 11:53 PM Why has the Lisa team remained silent? Isn't there a book here? I'd personally love to have all the anecdotes and the like concerning the Lisa's development to read. There's a little bit about it on the Mac Folklore site, but everything is so Mac-centric. It would be refreshing to read about the Lisa from a Lisa-centric perspective. Is everyone who was on the team still with us? It would be really useful for the Lisa's History to be recorded while it's still possible. Steve -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 2
And then it said, The software is integrated through a powerful and simple user interface. And it doesn't say it here, but John Couch, who was in charge of the Lisa project, did a sort of Kennedy we're-going-to-send-a-man-to-the-moon-and-bring-him-back thing; he said All I want is, I want to be able to go into a spreadsheet, put some numbers in, go and graph them, take the graph, paste it into my word processor document, and include it in a report. He didn't say paste -- you know, put it into my word processor document. He said, [If] I can do all those things in an integrated way, then we'll be way ahead of anything available on the Apple II, where there are all these separate programs that don't interact with each other. That's all he wanted. Whenever we brought him any issue he said, Remember what I want, and he went through the whole mantra. And that was a very healthy thing. It kept us focused. And then we also knew when we were done. Well, who were the users? Non technical, non analytical people. Non analytical. That's a very important point. First time users. Well, in 1980 there were a lot of first time users. Almost everybody. And here were examples: administrative assistants and secretaries. Also, secondarily, managers, accountants, and executives. It wasn't for programmers, it wasn't for kids, it wasn't for people at home doing recipes, this was an office system. And so, when you start looking at it, and comparing it maybe with the Mac, you'll see some differences based on that. And you may see some similarities to Windows. Design philosophy: so there was a whole section on the design philosophy, and what were the most important features to put in? Graphic images. Well, that was pretty vague. Menus. A pointing device that you could move around freely, as opposed to the cursor keys we were using up to then. And, we were going to let you invoke commands from the keyboard also, because there were times when you would do things over and over, and people felt that sometimes the mouse slowed you down a bit. So let's look at this keyboard. This was the keyboard that existed on the hardware when I arrived. It had a Code key in the upper left corner, and some of the keys, on their fronts, had some characters. In other words, in order to [get] the keyboard width they wanted, they couldn't fit all the characters on the keys. So they squeezed a few extra characters on the fronts of the keys, and had a special key to invoke those. And later we decided we could use that key together with other keys to do another function, that you'll see later. Now, I didn't like the hardware design too much, and I wanted to change it, but they said You can't change that. You know, you came from a research place. We just have to ship the hardware that we already built, otherwise we won't be able to ship this product when it's going to go to market. I said, Oh, when is that? They said, Six months. That was 1980. To jump ahead, it didn't ship 'til the middle of '83. Probably my fault. Okay. [Laughter] So, here was the pointing device. Kind of a brick -- that's a mouse. And, the color is me; I added color last night, just to highlight things you should look at. But it had two buttons at that time. And I handwrote on here something about the shape. I wasn't too happy with the shape. And I wasn't sure what distinguished these two keys, and whether there was a little space between them, or whether they were flush, or what. So, you'll see some of my handwritten scribbles on these memos. And here's how the mouse was used. Well, actually they didn't know a lot about how the mouse was used yet. They mostly were focused on the window manager: how the user would manage the windows on what we now call the desktop. And so at that time the idea was this: there would be a click and a drag, and those were two things you could do. You could click and let go, or you could click, hold, drag the mouse, and let go. Sometimes we called it drag, sometimes we called it draw, various names. And then the buttons got names: the point button and the grow button. And depending on where you pointed, and whether you clicked or dragged, and which button you used. This page here shows what happens if you went into the title tab of the window, the little thing that had the name. And it either would display the window menu, move the window, open or close the window, or change the size of the window. All of it done by clicking in the title. So there was no grow box in the lower right, there were no menus, it was all done with just one of two mouse buttons and a click or drag operation. Now, there was a menu at the bottom of the window, but it had nothing to do with window operations. It had to do with operating on the content inside the window. We'll get to that. I should stop saying when I got there because by then I'd already been there for two weeks, so I had some influence on this. I can't remember what. So here's a letter to Jef. Now Jef is
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 3
Now, we talked about testing. We said that the design's already based on studies of user reactions to various models; as you saw, we did three or four hours of testing. [Laughter] And we're going to do more testing, and avoid any glaring design flaws. I was happy that that was put in, because that meant we could go and fix some more problems that I was sure were there, because we hadn't done enough testing yet. So, what did it come down to? This is what it looked like: the basic model was overlapping windows, which is right from Smalltalk. There was that box at the top, just like in Smalltalk, that little title bar. The scroll bar was on the left, just like in Smalltalk, only instead of just that little box, there were the scroll arrows there. We thought it would be nice to have something to point to. In Smalltalk, you push the button and then the arrows appeared, and we thought that was a little weird. And there was this menu at the bottom. Now, if any of you -- who's ever used the system called UCSD Pascal? If you remember, there were menus in UCSD Pascal, and you would type the first letter of the menu name, and it would bring up a sub-menu, and you'd type the first letter of menu name, and you go through a hierarchy of menus. Now, also there was a machine -- I'm going to forget the number -- a Hewlett Packard computer, 2000? [Inaudible comment] No, it was a later model than that. HP something thousand, that had a row of function keys on the top of the keyboard, and at the bottom of the screen, under each key [comment: still have it?] Still have it. And you'd hit that key, that would activate that menu item. These were the two products that the authors of this interface knew the best. They used UCSD Pascal to do their software development, half of them came from Hewlett Packard, and so this was kind of a blend. And so they had function keys at the top of the keyboard that you could hit that would invoke the corresponding things, and they also had these hierarchical menus that were straight out of UCSD Pascal. Not the little pop-ups that were in Smalltalk. So that's where it was in August. Cut and Paste were two of the commands in the menu; that came from Smalltalk. And, as you see, there was a wastebasket. That's what you call the clipboard today. We used to call it the wastebasket. Different from the trashcan, which was a confusion we had later, and that's why we changed the name. But when you cut something, it went in the wastebasket, like in the office, you cut something and throw it in the wastebasket. But then you could take it and paste it somewhere else, and it was sort of a weak metaphor. And so you'd select it with a mouse. Notice that when you selected, there's this little arrow here. That turns out to be a significant point later. I'm moving fast because there are a lot of slide here. Now, Ken Victor, remember -- is Ken here today? No? Ken was one of the reviewers of the document, and he provided some input, very quickly. And he said, Why can you only select with a mouse? He must be someone who used EMACS or something; he wanted you to be able to select from the keyboard. You know, fourth line, third word, seventh character -- should be able to specify what you want. And fourth occurrence of the word Lisa, you should be able to say things like that. And he was maybe either -- he sort of didn't get it, or he was years ahead of his time, whichever way you want to look at it. But this is what he would like to use, and we had to sort of explain to him that our target market didn't want to find the fourth occurrence of Lisa in the third paragraph. They could see it with their own eyes, and select it with the mouse, and that was just fine. Now, here was something I wish we had listened to. At this point, it said that you were growing windows from the lower right. I showed you something before showing that it grew at the top. I think in this document it was sort of ambiguous, whether you grew it from the top or the lower right. And he didn't like that idea. He wanted to be able to grow from any side. I do think that's better, and we didn't pay any attention to him. They were worried about the screen space being too tight, or something. Moving a document within a window: he wanted to know, whether we could do what we now call live scrolling. As you move that elevator up and down the shaft, he wanted the text to move continuously. Problem was that the Lisa processor ran at, what, a quarter? [Comment: Five megahertz.] Five megahertz? It didn't even seem that fast, to me. Couldn't do it. So, some things were just pragmatic. He didn't like the idea of Cut and Paste. He wanted us to use Move, Copy and Delete, and Transpose. In other words, say you have two things you would select, move this to there, copy this to there, transpose these two things. Well, this wasn't the first time I'd heard that argument, and in fact this is one of those religious arguments like one button or -- one versus two
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 4
Those of you who know the Xerox Star know that the Xerox Star had that feature. Those of us who were from Xerox were under a confidentiality agreement, that we weren't allowed to tell the other Apple people about the Star. And so, as you go through this, you'll sometimes find that things seem like, Isn't it obvious solution? You could have got it from the Star. But none of us were able to say how the Star was. We were only allowed to comment on other people's proposals and make new ones. And it was an interesting kind of dynamic. But, gradually over time, a few Star-like things crept in, but not many until the Star actually shipped, or it was announced, in June of '81. But here we are in 1980. Then I suggested we try an I-shaped cursor for text selection, instead of an arrow. It actually is something I had done in my early years at Xerox, in a particular word processor I had done. I also said I wished the cursor would be bigger than 16 by 16, to go to 32 by 32, which we eventually did. Menus -- this was what, August 18th? I think we should experiment with menus at the top or right of the window, or even totally detached at the top of the screen, full width. So up to this time, we were doing sort of the way Windows does, and every window had its own menu. And I was thinking, You know, maybe we ought to put it at the top. You'll see why in a minute when you see the pictures. And then I said, Hierarchical menus -- well, maybe we have to have them, we can't get rid of them, but could we make them mouse accessed instead of having to type all these keystrokes? So, these were my two causes of the moment. Barry Smith, who was in Product Marketing, responded about the same time. And he said -- at this point, Bill had moved the menu bar, that Edit Cut Copy Paste thing, from the bottom of the window to the top of the window. That was the change. And Barry liked that. He liked it a lot better near the top. Called it near the top. And then he wanted to know, though, what would happen if there were a lot of menu items, and could the menus scroll. And those of you who know the history of the Mac user interface, know that at some point, around 1990 or so, we started adding scrolling to Mac menus. But we didn't have them in the early Mac or the Lisa, and I was against it because that would have encouraged people to have a lot of menu items, and I didn't think they should. So I kept that from happening. You can't constrain people, though. He also did not like the fact that you had to type multiple keystrokes to a hierarchical menu, and so he was thinking maybe we could get to something where it was a single keystroke to invoke a command no matter where it was in the hierarchy. And I think Bill was experimenting with that at that time. And he also didn't like the two-button mouse. He thought it was confusing. So, August 18th -- I guess that was August 13th, before. A few days later, after intense political, polite discussions, heated sometimes, Bill and I decided Hey, let's get rid of the second button. Let's shake things up. One-button mouse. So we wrote this memo together, so that people knew we were real serious. Sent it to the usual suspects. And we say, We recommend a change to a one-button mouse. And whoever wrote this comment, and I'm glad I don't know who it was, said, Well, maybe, not sure that's a good idea. But it turned out that Trip Hawkins, who later went on to found Electronic Arts and 3DO, was the Product Marketing manager. He loved it. He said, That's what we've got to do. We've got to think more kind of consumer oriented, really simple, get rid of all this computer science concepts, and give people something real simple. He liked the one button. So after that, we had a period, sort of, of good will, where we were able to do user interface design without a lot of complaining. Which ended after a while, as you'll see. Well, if you only have one button, some things are hard to do. You can drag a short selection, but what if you want to select something three pages long? It's a long time to drag from one end to the other. So, we thought, okay, well, we'll use the Shift key on the keyboard, because this doesn't happen very often. You click the beginning of the selection, you'll scroll to where you want to go, hold down the Shift key, and click the end of the selection. So that's where we got the Shift-button thing. Adjusting selection. And then we said, The one-button mouse is superior. Look at the reasons: superior human factors, you don't have to think of a name for each button. [Laughter] That's important, when you're trying to ship product in six months. The mouse will be cheaper to make, because one less button -- I mean, just think of what the cost of that little switch is. And, something a little more profound, someday when we start having other things than mice on our computers, like joysticks for games, tablets, touch screens, we'll be glad we only had one button because that one finger or
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 5
We had active folders, so we had to have passive folders; the folder that wasn't active was passive. Now look at the bottom. Who has ever seen Mac OS8? And when you drag a window to the bottom of the screen it just kind of pops, and becomes just a tab, and then you can click it and it will slide open. Guess what? That was in the original design, in August 1980, that we were going to do on the Lisa. And it only took 17 years to implement. [Laughter] [Comment: Microsoft's doing a similar thing.] Microsoft did something sort of similar, but not really the same, in between. There are some differences, but I won't comment right now. So what happened if the window was narrow? Well, if the window was narrow, this shows that the menu wouldn't fit; it would stick out. And if it was over on the right, it couldn't stick out on the right. It would stick out to the left. If it was too close to the bottom of the screen, then it would do this. And so, Bill showed all the cases, and a lot of us weren't too happy with this. So I went back to Bill again, and I said, Bill, the top of the screen -- top of the screen! None of us liked the idea of a two-line menu, which is the way Microsoft solved it, in some version of Windows. Here's an example of a menu item being selected. Notice that he's now got highlighting of the menu title, and he's got highlighting of the menu item. Bill had a long night one night and came back with that. And we had the help menu in here. The way we operated was, that Bill spent every night programming, and the next day we would do testing and arguing. I don't know when he slept, actually. Did he sleep? And then he would do it again, every night. Here's a memo from Gail Pilkington in Publications. The people writing manuals for the Lisa were key in commenting on the user interface design, had a lot of suggestions and a lot of good criticisms. And Gail actually had been at Xerox before. So, she said, I don't like pull-down menus. [I] think they're ugly, and they cover things up. So, you know, I'm trying to cut something, and the first thing that happens is the menu comes down, and covers the thing I'm trying to cut. No good. And then Bill had this feature, that you could -- which he still has -- you could drag the mouse along the menu bar, and the menus would pop up one at a time. And we thought this is great: the user can see all of the available commands in one swoop. Well, she thought it was terrible, that you had to do that to see all the commands. I didn't understand, because in UCSD Pascal you had to hit keys for 10 minutes to see all the commands. So, I didn't quite get that. She also didn't like the idea of dim highlighting. She thought we should just suppress the items altogether. So we had dissent in the group. And we always had dissent in the group. I just chose that because it's a memo that I had, illustrative of dozens of people who had dissent over every issue. Nothing specific about Gail. In particular, she said, Last version the spec, I thought we only had one issue, which was when that little menu bar at the bottom was full, we didn't know what to do about it, and you should have just solved that, instead of moving it to another place, adding drop-downs, and all these other things. You over-designed to solve the problem. And besides, I don't like Z for Cut and X for Paste. She had her own proposal that was mnemonic. September 22nd. It was now a month after I first said, Bill, why don't you try at the top of the screen? Bill had a very long night, and came back with the menu at the top of the screen, with command keys, check marks, everything -- he had everything. In one night he invented the entire mechanism of the menu bar at the top of the screen. To me it was just a place to put what he already had, but once he realized it was there, he could do a lot of other things. And he implemented an amazing amount in one night. So he wrote a memo to justify it, and said, There are some problems with it. You have to go way further to reach the menu, that's a problem. But we decided, since there were command keys, and he made it very easy to have a single-stroke command key in this version, this all-night version, that okay, if you really wanted to go to that menu item a lot, you could hit the command key on the keyboard instead and you wouldn't move the mouse at all. So that solved that problem. The other problem was, that if there were a lot of windows open, you wouldn't really be sure which menu applies to which window, and sure enough, that's still true today. But, tradeoffs, you know. Why was it good? It was good because you got rid of all those ugly cases of sticking out menus, and also, the dialog box that came up when you had a command with parameters, could always go in the same place. And we had a problem before, with the dialog box coming up and covering up the menu, half the window, and so on. And so we could put it in a standard place under the menu bar. So this was all
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 6
But, we started. This motivated those of us who decided we had to do this the right way to actually run more user tests. Because we thought maybe we could overwhelm them with facts, and that will overcome this reliance on votes of committees. So, Chris Doerr, Wallace Judd -- I think Wallace maybe worked at Xerox before this, I can't remember -- these are two people that got involved with user testing the Filer, which we think of as the Finder today. And they ran some tests, and came up with all sorts of comments. I've underlined a couple here. Like there needs to be a way to select multiple icons at once. Well, they weren't icons yet even. Ways to manipulate multiple things at once. But basically, after making some comments, they said, You know, this is a good idea. Their own personal experience with testing was that you hired a testing firm, you spent a lot of money, three months later you came back with test results, and you did some things, and you did it again. You know, it took forever. Or, they would take a book and give it to a subject. Have the user read the manual, try out the manual, videotape the whole thing. And she said, You know, this wasn't bad, just sitting down next to the user and having a dialog with the user, trying to get the user talking, and express what they're doing, is not a bad way to do it. So that was good, that we got the people doing the user testing to adopt this much simpler and cheaper paradigm. We tape-recorded the sessions, and they found that useful. They went back and listened to the tapes. However, the tapes were hard to hear, because the people in the room were making noise. So they asked the observers to be quieter. But one problem, she said, was that we're only testing Apple employees. We would get Apple employees the day they took the job, the day they started work. We'd get them in orientation. The person running orientation would say, Well, after orientation you can go straight to work, or you can go be a user test subject, and, hey, you can get out of work for a few more hours, so we got a lot of people to come over and be user test subjects. Almost all of them had very little computer experience, because although Apple would have liked to hire people with computer experience in those days, there weren't very many. Here's a typical schedule. We weren't trying to do two an hour any more. One person at a time. One each day. Nine o'clock, one o'clock, three o'clock, much more civilized. And we had a checklist that the tester went through, before each session: Have you reminded the subject of whatever -- I've no idea, whatever they're supposed to remember, that's on the list. Is there coffee available? Do you have a blank questionnaire ready for the person? Because we had them fill out a questionnaire at the end. Do you have the checklist ready? Have you rewound the tape? Have we rewound the tape for this, the talk today? Have you rebooted? Because it crashed if you didn't. Are the cue cards in the testing room, etcetera. After each session did you cover up the Lisa again, because the room had a window, and at night you could see in the window, and see the secret Lisa machine. Did you close the blinds, for a double measure? Etcetera, etcetera. So we had a lot of things to remind the tester about. That's a good idea if you ever run user tests, have a checklist. Now Wallace, the guy who received the last memo, wrote this memo about some testing results. He said he spent about an hour a subject, which was pretty typical. That's the way I like to do testing myself. And he said, Well, some functions still unclear; in particular, seven subjects out of -- how many? It doesn't say, but not a lot, not very many -- most of the subjects had trouble with Undo Last Command. They'd never seen such a thing in a program before, and they just didn't quite understand what it meant. Then there were other ones they understood, but they didn't feel comfortable with somehow. One was Print a Copy, one was Mail a Copy. Well, I believe the reason was that we didn't have printers yet on the machine, and we didn't have e-mail. In fact, we never had e-mail. [Laughter] So, we're probably just showing these, and not really -- couldn't use them, so of course they didn't understand them. Graphics editor user testing. This was LisaDraw, which became Mac Draw later, implemented by the same guy actually, Mark Cutter. And we wanted to test various things. Is this confusing, is that confusing? What happens if you try to use rulers at the same time as cross hairs? Is that too many things on the screen? Considering all the widgets that are there today in a Photo Shop or something, why were we worried? There was even worry about whether people could use a graphics program, because most people can't draw. So they wouldn't use a graphics program. We also wanted to know the error rates. And so a lot of counting was being done, and looking at tapes to see how many times people made errors, and try
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 7
All right. Now it's still 1981, I should mention that the Xerox Star was announced at NCC or something -- National Computer Conference, I think in June of '81. Some Lisa people flew out there, got a look at it. Bill Atkinson went, I believe, and Steve Jobs went, or maybe he sent Bill and didn't go himself, I can't remember. At this point we had a guy named Greg Stikeleather who had joined the group, working for Ellen Nold in Lisa Training. Some of you may know Greg, because he's more recently been an entrepreneur, sold a couple of companies. And Ellen is sending a memo to various people, copying Greg, on responsibility charting for user tests. Now, that user interface council we talked about before, with the majority vote, I don't know if they ever even had one meeting. We kind of overwhelmed them somehow. And by this time, a few months later, we had to have a new process. So the new process was that, based on some lecture we all went to by some management consultant, we were going to have people with authority, people with responsibility, people who are consulted, people who are informed. And basically, Product Management had all the authority, since Ellen worked for them [laughter], and Engineering and Training, which was Ellen's group, had all the responsibility. So we did all the work, and then Product Management would bless it and say that ... [portion missing from tape] Okay. February 1982. A year and a half has gone by. Engineering user tests. This is a sample test. This is a write-up of a test. We had a standard form to write them up in, now we're getting real formal here. Not just, you know, run in to Steve Jobs after the test and tell him what happened. We were writing formal reports: what the person did, how they did, I'll skip over a little bit of this. The person had to draw an org chart, and here, not having a graphics program myself that had printing working yet, I was doing it in the word processor and drawing little org charts here. But they were really doing it with a drawing program. And by the way, the thing that won over the Product Marketing people was when we gave them the drawing program. It was the first one to get working. I had Mark Cutter just try to get it really reliable, and don't worry about too many features. And then we gave all the Product Marketing people a Lisa, some temporary operating system, and the drawing program. That's it. It was a single-tasking operating system at that time. And they all started using it to make foils. You can do text, you can do boxes, you know, and they all did foils. They fell in love with the Lisa, and even started to understand the Lisa, and gradually the complaints started dying down, and they started trusting like maybe we knew what we were talking about. So that was a very good political move. I always made sure Mark gave them good stable versions of the Draw program. They'd draw a floor plan. And then at the end ... [few words missing from tape] ... had comments to make, and you could see that the comments were summarized, and people were basically very positive about this program. Sometimes there were complaints, and we addressed them. This particular test was, I guess, run by Greg Stikeleather and me. He probably ran the test and I was in the room, or sometimes we switched off. He made a comment, which was that I-beam, which was the cursor that you used to select text, when the person would start typing, that little cursor was covering what they were typing. So he suggested that we get rid of it. Well, there was no mechanism to get rid of it. in the software, but he didn't know that. So it was good that he was there, and suggested it. And we then implemented that. I pointed out that the stretch handles were a problem. Initially, what Mark had done was he studded the outside of the object, like every fourth pixel, with a little handle. So big objects had beads all the way around the outside. It was like a necklace. This really confused the people, and I suggested that we just have the four corners and the four sides, and that's all. And that is the way it ended up. Of course, I'm going to show you all the good comments. We had a lot of stupid suggestions, too. And now, remember we had user test guidelines before. Greg wrote some new ones. Here, he was trying to address this to people who might have been used to formal user testing, and never experienced what he was calling development testing -- things you test after the fact, and things you test while you're still in development. So he made some guidelines, and they were interestingly a little different from mine. A different level. And I think I didn't bring them. Just the fact that he did. All right, getting near the end here. May, '82. A little less than two years since I arrived. I had just finished some tests, so Greg said we should run some development tests, so we did, we ran development tests. I taught 30 Apple employees, over a period of several weeks, several
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 10
I remember very, very, very clearly that one of the massive controversies around the development for the Macintosh, circa 1982-1983, was developers would come up to us and say, You know, if you make the user interface consistent, and if you put all that software in ROM that makes it -- you know, if you make it hard to write to the screen directly, so that we have to use your user interface software to talk to the user, how are we ever going to make our applications unique, and stand out, and be different from each other in the marketplace? They found a way, I'm very happy, but the human interface and the idea about consistent human interface, much less a graphic one, was very, very controversial among software developers. And only by having the user testing under our belt to show them that hey, this is going to add significant value to your product, by making your product easier to learn and easier to use, especially for people who already know another application, were we able to really convince them that a consistent graphic user interface was a good thing to have. I want to fast-forward a little, skip through the early years of the Macintosh and go to a tape that I dug up from the Apple library, of some user interface testing that shows how amusing user interface testing can be, and the kinds of situations in far-flung places that members of our glorious user interface group went, to find the truth about what real users would do. This is a tape of a couple of our user interface designers, Lauri Vertelney and one other person, I may come up with her name. [Inaudible comment] I don't think it was Gitta. Traveled to France to a parts dealership for Renault automobiles, who were deploying a new automotive parts catalog based on HyperCard, HyperCard being a free-form tool kit for designing new software interfaces. [It] presented an entire raft of new problems in human interface design. They actually went to France to test auto mechanics in their own environment. I'm going to play that tape for you now. [Q, while videotape is being set up:] Was the name Kate Gomoll, is that right? Do you know the name? CE: It might have been Kate Gomoll, yeah. Thank you, Annette. Was that Annette? [Inaudible reply] Oh, it's Joy. Hi, Joy. [VIDEOTAPE PLAYS] The first part of the user test is to test users attempting to fill out the order form and the estimate form, using the current paper methods. These are the order and estimate forms that the mechanics currently use. The [inaudible] part catalog is used to look up parts information. And the repairmen will have instructions on how to [inaudible] car. Kate's going to test the procedure and tasks to be performed by the mechanic. All the instructions were interpreted for the mechanic because Kate doesn't speak French. [Several sentences in French.] If you have trouble with some of the tasks, it's the system's fault, not yours. [More French sentences.] [Inaudible] Kate suggests that we have us evaluate the results later, [inaudible] after the test session. Seeing the mechanic work with the paper helps us to understand how he prefers to get information. For example, he stacks the forms on top of the catalog, and flips the pages while he's searching for information. Research techniques helped us to submit one recommendation for searching with the electronic version [inaudible]. Once we have finished testing the current form [inaudible] procedure, we ask the mechanic to solve the same problem with the documentation for the electronic system. At this point in our test the user has tried for over two minutes [inaudible] to start the system. Kate finally instructs the user he must click on the tiny icon below the Renault logo to start the system. The interpreter wants to know if he should explain the popup menu that [inaudible] below the startup icon, and Kate says no. When he clicks on the icon he knows nothing about how to use popup menus, and initiate the dialog box, which explains to him he needs to hold down on the icon. Of course, the mechanic's never seen a dialog box before, and is confused, not only about the message inside of it, but what to do with it. Finally he realizes he must click on OK to get rid of it. [Inaudible] he tried to stop the application and click on any of the buttons in the menus in the left of the screen. Unfortunately, none of the menu items worked at this point, because he had not filled out the appropriate vehicle identification, to actually start a work session. He tries the small icon in the center of the screen [inaudible] the dialog boxes telling him to hold down on the icon. This time he doesn't see that he must click on the OK boxes, but he's clicking around the screen [inaudible] Finally Kate instructs him to hold down the button in order to start the program [inaudible] hold down the OK button in the dialog box. [Laughter] We tried testing the dialog [inaudible], one more time. But, [inaudible] the dialog box. [Inaudible] the OK
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 1a
http://www.computerhistory.org/events/lectures/appleint_10281997/appleint_xs cript.shtml Origins of the Apple Human Interface Larry Tesler Chris Espinosa 5:30 PM, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1997 Computer Museum History Center Building 126 Moffett Field Mountain View, CA 94035 This is a verbatim transcript of a public lecture given on October 28, 1997. === Larry has also been coming to many of the programs before and since then, so it's like this history talks series had developed a history of its own. So, tonight we have Larry and Chris Espinosa from Apple, talking about the early Apple user interfaces. I think, as you may have heard, Larry came to Apple from Xerox PARC, back in 1980, and he figured he was bringing a lot of user interface knowledge with him, only he's found out recently that user interface testing and development existed at Apple before 1980. And Chris had a part in that. Chris -- I think this is correct -- was probably the youngest Apple employee ever; [he] did demos at Apple while a high school student. === LARRY TESLER: We're glad to be here. This is a talk actually that's based on one that Chris and I gave at Apple back in July. We got clearance, thankfully, from the Apple lawyers, which came about two - three weeks ago, so we could give it here, just in time to announce it. We're grateful to Apple to release this for public disclosure, because we think it's of general interest. Asking about what was early user interface design at Apple was kind of like asking about early engine design at Mercedes Benz or something. Everybody was doing it. So, you could have gotten a lot of people up here to give a talk, and you get different perspectives on the same things that happened. So today you're going to get the perspective of a couple of us. To get it to be a little more grounded in something more [closely related] to fact than opinion or perspective, we're trying to use as much as possible actual, original documents that were created at the time. So you see actual, contemporaneous thinking as it was going on, instead of just our memories, which fade over time and tend to aggrandize over time, and so on. Here's something which is not from Apple. This is the cover of Byte [Magazine], from August '81, that was the Smalltalk issue. Colorful -- this one doesn't have color, but it was a very colorful balloon. The reason I show it is that there was a lot of influence from Xerox obviously on the user interfaces that were done on the Lisa and the Macintosh, but maybe not as much as some people think. The media tends to say, Oh, they just copied it. So I'm going to show you what it looked like, to be working on, from that article, which I wrote, to be working on a Smalltalk, at that time, 1981. You see what the windows looked like, kind of a little rectangular title, scroll bar without any arrows, and a pop-up menu. There were two pop-up menus that you could use for each window. So, it was a pretty different looking interface. One of the principles that was in the Smalltalk environment was to have no modes, and this was actually of a tee shirt that was made for me by a friend, that said Don't Mode Me In, that represented sort of this mission that I was on, to try to eliminate all modes from user interfaces. Which isn't necessarily a good idea, but it was definitely the mission I was on. [Laughter] And at the end of that article, it mentioned that Apple Computer had gotten a license to Smalltalk, and was maybe going to do something with it, but maybe not going to do anything with it. In fact, Apple, and Hewlett Packard, Digital Equipment, and Techtronics all did do various amounts of Smalltalk development after that. But it was really independent companies that managed to make Smalltalk somewhat of a success. I'm jumping to the end here before I go to the beginning, just to let people know what the Lisa was. The idea of the Lisa was to have something that was very, very easy to use. People loved the Apple II, which was what we had at the time at Apple, but it took a long time to learn how to use it. What we wanted to end up with was something that was easy to learn, and just to show you that we did do that, this is a study done at the end, where there were 18 subjects: 6 using LisaGraph, 6 using LisaWrite, and LisaList. LisaGraph was a business graphics program; LisaList was a list manager, kind of a flat file database; LisaWrite was a word processor. And as you see, for all but one user using LisaList, it was under 20 minutes to get through the core competency to use the application. And if you ever had a chance to use a Lisa, and I hope there will be one operating here someday, then you'll see that it was extremely easy, and in many ways more bullet proof, I'd say, than the Mac. Not simpler than the Mac, actually, but we loaded a lot of things into it to try to make it so people couldn't get themselves in trouble. -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop
Origins of the Apple Human Interface - part 1b
Okay, so let's start at the beginning. I started at Apple on July 17th, 1980, and I just left there a few months ago. I was there for 17 years. This memo was written on July 18, 1980, so one thing I discovered when I left the big Xerox Corporation and went to this little Apple startup, was that you just really get engaged immediately and they put you right to work. One thing I was told, the day I got there, was that the user interface design was basically done, and they were just going to write it up and finalize it, and implement it, and that was the end of it. And it was too bad I took so long to show up at the office, because they were hoping that I could have contributed to it, but now there was no time left to do that. And this was the 18th, and they told me that all the decisions had to be made by the 23rd, and by one week later the external reference specifications had to be done, which was the complete spec, but we couldn't compromise quality at all, and so, what could I do between the 18th and the 23rd, to make sure we made all the right decisions? So I started explaining how it was really necessary to do months of user testing, and careful iteration, and I gave my whole spiel about the right way to design software, and they said, Well, sorry, we only have five days, and the weekend in there. [Laughter] So, we got together and we came up with a compromise, which was to lay out a schedule that was very aggressive, and people promised that they would meet their part. So let's go through the schedule -- this was the 18th. So here was the schedule. Monday, we're going to run user tests, so -- well, we're all going to try it ourselves. Everybody's going to try Bill Atkinson's prototype. Bill Atkinson was the person building the prototypes at that time, and thinking up a lot of the ideas. And we were going to evaluate several issues that were going on. Then we were going to bring in, after two hours of that -- we were going to take a break for lunch. Then at one o'clock we were going to bring in Sue Espinosa, who was in charge of training, and also coincidentally is Chris Espinosa's mother, and then she was going to give her opinions about that, and maybe help us decide on what would be easiest to train in her opinion. And then at two o'clock we were going to discuss, for an hour, a couple more issues, and now we would be done. We will have discussed all the issues. And in between three and five o'clock we would present this all to Steve Jobs, and Steve would make the decision, which we knew would be definitely forthcoming. [Laughter] And then on Tuesday we were going to take the things that Steve liked, and we were going to test them on subjects, from 9:00 to 10:00. Two subjects. [Laughter] Two more subjects from 10:00 to 12:00 -- we must have figured we'd be slowing down by then. [Laughter] 1:00 to 3:00, we'd evaluate the test results. So that was it. Remember, that was supposed to be July 22nd. For the next 15 minutes or so, keep in mind that that was the schedule for July 21st and 22nd. And we actually did that. We did all those tests. We did talk to Steve Jobs. He gave his opinions. We did some more testing. And then Bill went to write up a user interface specification, external reference specification. I was a little worried, because we hadn't really done extensive testing, but we tested a couple things. So this date, August 6, which as you may notice, a few days later than the deadline date that we had provided, but it took a while. And it said that you had one week to review and return your comments. So we were already starting to slow down a little bit here. And let's look at some of the names of the people who got this memo, because it will turn up to be important later in the story, or just interesting right now: Ken Victor, who is going to respond to it later, and Jef Raskin also. Barry Smith. In additon to that, notice we sent it to Mike Markkula, who was one of the founders of the company, and Steve Jobs. Trip Hawkins, who was the head of Product Marketing. We sent it to everybody in Lisa software group. We only sent one copy to Lisa hardware; they get to share. [Laughter] We sent it to every vice president we could think of, and to two people who became Apple Fellows somewhat later, Rod Holt and Steve Wozniak, who's here in the back today. I don't know if he remembers receiving this memo, but he probably does, it was pretty dramatic. I think we did some things right. Bill started out by talking about who is the customer. So it wasn't just some easy to use computer, it was an easy to use computer for specific people. So, what was it? First of all, it's a single user workstation. That was in important point in those days. Well, it's still an important point if you work at Sun or something. And [it was] designed to enhance the productivity of the office worker. So our market was office workers. And it went on and talked about the hardware and so on. It's more than a piece of
Lisa Office System source code ?
Hi Does anyone have Lisa Office System source listings? I'm trying to find the source listing to such programs as the Lisa Desktop Manager (Lisa Finder in Mac parlance) or any of the Lisa applications such as LisaWrite. Paper listings are fine. I just want to see how these programs were built internally. I think it would be a shame if such sources disappered since they were very innovative. FYI, I have the source for the Lisa boot ROM and the Lisa programmer's ToolKit. - David Craig -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: Lisa 2/5 Profiles crash - ProFile formatting
Hello Helmut, There is no book or service web site as far as I know. You are correct that you need an Apple III and a special ProFile controller board processor to format a ProFile hard drive. The same applies also to the Widget drive in the Lisa. There is service information available to do this process. Apple produced a Level II repair document for the ProFile which talks about this in conjunction with a special ProFile debugger program. I have this document and should scan it so others can learn about this process. I have a notebook with lots of internal ProFile materials from Apple that has around 500+ pages. - David Craig -- From: Dr. Helmut Post [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Re: Lisa 2/5 Profiles crash Date: Wed, Oct 19, 2005, 8:16 AM You need an Apple III with a Profile Interface card, a Low Level format kit (Apple III disks plus Z8 processor with LLF EPROM's) to format your Profile hard disk. There is no book or service web site as far as I know. Helmut -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: Alice
Hi Anthony, Your comments about the Amazing and Alice games are interesting reading. Andy Hertzfeld's Macintosh Folklore web site (www.folklore.org) has the Amazing story you mention. I have the source listing to Amazing which I got from Steve Capps many years ago. This was written mostly in Lisa Pascal with a bit of 68000 assembly language using the Lisa Monitor development environment. As you said about Alice's programming, Amazing too contains hardware dependent features. I recall Amazing was written for the original Macintosh's small black-and-white screen and updated the screen's memory buffer directly instead of using the LisaGraf (opps, I mean QuickDraw) graphics library. Q: Can you send me a copy of the Alice disk you have in disk copy format? I don't have a copy of this game and would like one if possible. I can send you the Amazing program and source listing. - David Craig -- From: Anthony Moss [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Re: Alice Date: Wed, Nov 23, 2005, 6:59 AM Shirl wrote: Apple's first Lisa game was most likely the MAZE program written by Steve Capps, the author of the ALICE game. I recall reading a ST. MAC maqgazine article about MAZE which talked about its origins on the Lisa. I believe ALICE came after MAZE. If you Google for information about Andy Hertzfeld's program Switcher for the Mac 512K, you'll find various anecdotes about its creation. One of them involves a letter from Bill Gates to Andy, saying how delighted he was with the demo version of Switcher, and how he had wasted far too much time playing Amazing (Steve Capps' maze game, that Andy used to demo Switcher). You should try to contact Steve Capps directly and see if he has the Lisa version. If he does, you may not be able to run it since it most likely was written for the LISA MONITOR environment which is super rare. This environment was Apple's internal development environment for the Lisa predating the LISA WORKSHOP environment. The other Lisa environment from Apple was the LISA OPERATING SYSTEM which was used by the LISA OFFICE SYSTEM. That doesn't surprise me too much. I've looked at Alice for the Mac with ResEdit, and it does all sorts of naughty things, like writing the title screen directly to video memory, and not using the Mac's system of resources. -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
Re: Free IBM AT
Chris, Then there was the 68000 based lab computer (O so you didn't know IBM used the 68k!). Also about 10 grand IIRC. You are referring to the IBM PC/9000 system. BYTE magazine had a very good article about this long ago, mid 1980s I believe. Seemed like a very good machine but with a very focused audience, i.e. scientists. I assume IBM used the 68000 CPU for this machine as a research project so it would better understand this CPU's capabilities. - David Craig -- From: Chris M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LisaList lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com Subject: Re: Free IBM AT Date: Tue, Feb 28, 2006, 6:30 PM I think the main thing was the price. IBM had a couple of debacles in it's time too. I picked up, which required considerable effort, a System 23/Datamaster recently. Released almost simultaneously with the PC. Cost about 10 grand. Then there was the 68000 based lab computer (O so you didn't know IBM used the 68k!). Also about 10 grand IIRC. --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It just makes it sad to contemplate what the platform could have become, had it been extended. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com -- LisaList is sponsored by http://lowendmac.com/ and... Shop buy.com and save. http://lowendmac.com/ad/buy.com.html Support Low End Mac http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html LisaList info: http://lowendmac.com/lists/lisa.html -- AOL users, remove mailto:; Send list messages to: mailto:lisalist@mail.maclaunch.com To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For digest mode, email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscription questions: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/lisalist%40mail.maclaunch.com/ iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
